


All around, they were cheering me on, the joy of finding them

by alter_antarctica



Series: Shameless US Femslash Week [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cissexism, Day 2 - AUs, Explicit Language, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Shameless US Femslash Week, obnoxious work parties, slight homophobia and heterosexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:28:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alter_antarctica/pseuds/alter_antarctica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem is, when she meets his sister, she starts to question the quality of her previous decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All around, they were cheering me on, the joy of finding them

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe fic where Svetlana works in a bar, meets Ian, who introduces her to Mickey and then she finally meets Mandy. Yay!  
> Warnings - there are some slight homophobic and heteronormative views in the fic.  
> Also if there's a vodka only bar in Chicago's bar district I would jump for joy - as I made that up.
> 
> Title taken from Louise Glück (though I messed with it and made it happy).
> 
> Written for the Shameless US Femslash Week - Day 2 AUs (where it is Day 2 somewhere in the world).

Svetlana hates to admit it, but she thinks she’s best friends with Ian. She’s the kind of person that when he calls at 3.51AM, drunk and standing outside a club in Boystown, trying to figure out the best way home, she says, “Fuck off,” but in Russian, so he knows she still loves him. Then texts him three numbers for trusted cab companies, just in case he’s forgotten how to use his fingers. Or is otherwise engaged. She doesn’t mean to worry, but somewhere, deep inside, there’s a mothering instinct that he seems to bring out. Kicking and screaming.  
  
Ian is one of her regulars at the vodka-only bar on Division Street where she works. He is beautiful in dark blue suits and open-necked shirts, and always over-tips, despite the Russian ice-girl waitress persona she must maintain to keep her job. His jokes make her lips tug into diminutive smiles. When she talks to him, she knows he’s not looking at her breasts only, and she admires his thoughtfulness, that he lets her see, beneath his cockiness. It is Ian that takes their friendship out of the bar and into the real world. She knows this is because he is the American, he has the power, but she tells herself she has made this choice too.  
  
Ian is in love with a boy at his company, Mickey, who has got lost somewhere deep inside a big, snow-covered forest behind an old English piece of furniture (a bad joke that Ian has tried to explain to her), and so when Ian comes to her, all puppy dog chin, bulging eyes and secret-squirrel-Svetlana-only-smile, she agrees to be Mickey’s “beard” for an office Christmas party. That way Mickey and Ian can ditch her for an extended interlude in a bathroom stall without it appearing obvious to their co-workers. Ian only looks half guilty at leaving her standing against the bar, in her second-best dress, but the free cocktails chase the discomfort of solitude (and unwanted old men in grey suits attention) away. For once, she can drink them guilt-free.  
  
One evening somehow turns into more until she’s been ‘dating’ Mickey, on request, for nearly five months. They don’t have much to do with each other, Ian is their intermediary. She sees Mickey is strong and loyal and determined – but all this he saves for Ian. When she and Mickey stand next to each other, on enforced office dates, or make polite conversation about Svetlana’s job, they barely touch.  
  
The problem is, when she meets his sister, she starts to question the quality of her previous decisions.  
  
It’s at one of those obnoxious office summer parties where grown adults run around a city park with eggs and spoons and too serious expressions. Or jump in potato sacks as if their entire bodies are not rebelling against the aging process. She makes nice-nice with the senior management that work over both Ian and Mickey, and with Mickey’s hand at her back, spread like a steel clamp, she is re-introduced to his boss. His hand disappears as soon as that ritual is performed. There are team races where jumping in and out of obstacles like large pink plastic circles is required. She looks on with summoned pride as Ian wins his team’s race, but refrains from clapping.  
  
A girl beside her is, though. Whooping and cheering as if it’s going to break her in two.  
  
“Fucking ace!” the girl says, when Ian crosses the line.  
  
“You know Ian?” Svetlana asks.  
  
“Yeah? He and my brother hang out.” The words come out of her painted raspberry-red mouth like she doesn’t want them to, as if there’s a barrier between her words and the world. But she’s not afraid of the words and she holds Svetlana’s gaze with her own glacial stare. Svetlana looks down at the ground, knowing that giving in, giving way, is sometimes the best way to make the other person feel most uncomfortable. Then she can’t help herself and looks back.  
  
The girl has long black hair and her bangs swing in and out of her line of vision as she moves. Her eyes are covered in blue indigo eyeliner and mascara, so thick and dark it could be warpaint. She’s wearing long black stockings, despite the heat of the growing summer sun. Svetlana looks down at her own red dress, loose, long and low-cut for optimal breeze, and smiles.  
  
Wait.  
  
“Wait,” she says. “You – brother – Mickey?” English grammar fails her.  
  
“You know Mickey?” the girl asks.  
  
“I’m his girlfriend?” Svetlana says, with much less conviction than she means to.  
  
The girl looks at her, chewing her gum with extra-large, obnoxious bites. Svetlana pulls herself up tall, preparing to make battle in English swear words. But then the girl bursts into precocious laughter.  
  
“This I got to fucking see.”  
  
“You think I not good enough?” asks Svetlana. “I good. I very good. I do good thing for him. He know that.” She repeats what she’s said in her head, the way that Ian’s taught her that English can mean many different things at once, and realises her mistake. The girl is looking at her like she’s made of ice-cream on a stick.  
  
“I mean, I good for Mickey. He and I.” She stops, and then pulls her fingers into a fist in Ian’s general direction. “Stupid Orange Boy can explain to you. Not me.” Then she smiles again at the other girl. “You too pretty for dirty lies.”  
  
“Yeah there’s that,” says the girl. “And the fact that Mickey likes the taste of dick too much.”  
  
Svetlana hollers out a laugh at the girl’s unexpected turn in conversation. It’s in bright relief to the formal, heavy feeling of performing the role of Svetlana, Mickey’s girlfriend, at the picnic. For the longest time, since she’s come to America, she can’t remember laughing like that.  
  
“You better than brother,” she says. “Is grumpy, Mickey. Stamping around like his feet are on fire. Maybe is dick that’s on fire all along.” She drops her voice to a low hum, and brushes aside the other girl’s hair to whisper in her ear. “Or, what Ian tells me, his poop-hole.”  
  
The girl responds with a slow smile, until her blue eyes are sparkling. “Mandy,” she says.  
  
Svetlana doesn’t know what to do with this word, as she’s been taught in English class that the nicest introductions are usually accompanied with a handshake in America, but instead Mandy returns Svetlana’s earlier gesture and pushes a strand of Svetlana’s hair behind her ear. Then she takes Svetlana’s hand in hers, folding her fingers around each other’s, and says, “Have you had any of the fried chicken yet? We’re surrounded by fucking assholes, but at least they know how to cook.”  
  
She gets that tingle, firing and growing inside her like unexpected flashing powder, and knows she’ll follow Mandy wherever she wants to lead her.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted them to have sex but the fic wouldn't let me. Sorry :(


End file.
